How To Perform The 'This Must Be It' Card Trick

Step 1: You will need

Step 2: The Trick

Tell your participant that the audience you are going to predict the card they choose and that you are going to write it down on the back of a business card. Now place the business card in the deck. Ask your participant to take a few cards from the top. Shuffle them, and choose a card. In this case, the 5 of spades. Tell them to put it on the top of their cards, and to put all their cards onto the top of their deck. Now tell them to make one complete cut. Now cut to the business card and reveal that what you actually wrote was 'this must be it'. Explain that for each letter you are going to deal one card face down onto the table. THIS MUST BE IT. Turn over the next card and who'd of think it, it's their card! Magic par excellence. Your audience will be bedazzled.

Step 3: How it's done.

The secret to this trick is in the placing of the business card. Cunning Nick Reade places the business card into the deck 12 cards from the bottom while making it look all casual like. This way, when the participant cuts the deck, he positions his chosen card 13 cards below the business card. So when the magician cuts to the business card, he knows he has 12 cards between it and the chosen card - just enough for one card per letter to be spelt out in a dramatic crescendo.